Mail game
A post game (also letter game or game by post ; English: Play-by-mail game, PBM ) is a game that is played using letters , since those involved in the game usually do not stay in the same place and do not play at the same time. The oldest known postal game is correspondence chess . The idea for other turn-based games post was created in the 1960 's in the United States and celebrated in the 1980s, her breakthrough in the German speaking countries. In the 1990s, the so-called play by e-mail developed from the post game, in which e-mails are sent much faster and cheaper instead of letters.
The principle of operation is always the same: The game is divided into rounds that correspond to a letter run. Many postal games have a large number of players, so that the moves of the individual players are not sent to the players, but to a game master. The moves usually have to be received by the game master by a certain deadline (date of submission, ZAT ), after which he then evaluates the moves and then sends a summary of the results to all players.
Many of the typical postal games have a very rigid set of rules that are sometimes reminiscent of simple programming languages in order to make the moves uniformly for many players and to facilitate sequential evaluation. Some games, however, have an almost role-playing character.
After correspondence chess , the strategy game Diplomacy was the second game to be played in this way; this still plays an important role today. The soccer simulation game United is also currently widespread .
There are a number of PBM zines that summarize several postal games in a regularly published booklet and that players subscribe to at cost price. In addition to many free postal games, there are also commercial providers who usually charge a lap-dependent fee for participation. The target group for commercial providers is getting smaller and smaller in the field of classic postal games in times of online role-playing games .
The borderline between the modern post game and the computer game is fluid, as programs are now often used both for the player to make moves and for the game master to evaluate them.
A form of the postal game that was widespread before the breakthrough of telex and the Internet was the transfer game, in which pennies were transferred to the bank account of the other player and the respective moves were transmitted in the subject line of the transfer medium, so that they later appeared on the account statement. Other side channels can also be used for data transmission.
literature
- Karl Heinz Koch: Games by post. The adventure out of the mailbox. DuMont, 1989.